The Girl They Forgot to Love novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Unwell

Pierce arrives with a doctor's note to have her declared unwell, and Lizzie takes him apart in front of Anthony's lobby staff.

I didn't sleep.

At seven I gave up and went down to the lobby for coffee, because I could not stand the sound of the quiet guest room any longer.

Anthony was in the elevator behind me. He had a laptop bag over his shoulder and had clearly not slept either.

"Stay by me," he said.

"Why?"

The elevator opened, and I saw why.

Pierce was standing in the middle of the lobby in a camel overcoat.

Beside him was a gray-haired man in a white coat holding a leather folder. Behind them, two men in dark jackets stood with their hands folded in front of them.

The doorman looked at Anthony and raised his eyebrows. Anthony shook his head slightly. Wait.

"There she is," Pierce said, loud and warm. "Lizzie. Thank God."

Four people in the lobby looked up from their phones.

"We've been worried sick," Pierce said. "This is the doctor. He's very gentle. He only wants to talk to you."

"Hello," I said to the doctor.

"Miss Brannigan," the doctor said. "Your brothers are concerned about an acute reaction to grief. I've prepared a short assessment."

"You prepared it. Before you met me."

His mouth opened and closed.

"Pierce," I said. "Would you read me the first line of the note?"

"Lizzie, don't make this harder."

"It's a note about me. I'd like to hear it."

Pierce took the folder from the doctor and cleared his throat. He was enjoying this a little.

"Patient presents with delusions of family status, paranoia and acute emotional instability," he read.

"Present how?" I asked. "When did he see me?"

"We described your behavior," Pierce said.

"Who's we?"

"Me. Rowan."

"So you described me, and a doctor wrote down what you said, and you want to put me somewhere on that."

Nobody said anything.

The doorman had stopped pretending to look at the desk. A woman with a toddler in a stroller had turned all the way around.

I looked at the doctor. "Have you ever met me?"

"No," he said, very quietly.

"Have you spoken to me before this minute?"

"No."

"Then I'd like you to say, out loud, to everyone here, what you're licensed to certify without an exam."

He took a step backward.

"This was not explained to me properly," he said to Pierce. He closed the folder and walked straight through the revolving door into the cold.

Pierce stared after him.

"Lizzie, you're embarrassing yourself," he said.

"You walked into a stranger's lobby with two guards and a doctor's note," I said. "I'm not the one who's embarrassed."

The two men in jackets studied the floor.

One of them was already backing toward the door.

Anthony had not said a word. Now he stepped up beside me and put his hand against the small of my back.

It was a light touch, just steadying. I felt it through my sweater all the way down my spine.

I did not move away.

"Mr. Brannigan," Anthony said. "This is private property. My building's policy is that you leave."

"Vanderveer." Pierce's smile slipped. "You're holding our debt. You're not holding my sister."

"I'm holding nothing of your sister's."

"Then stay out of it."

"She's my guest," Anthony said. "Leave."

Pierce looked from his face to mine.

I waited for him to say what he always said, the thing with Mom in it.

Instead he took a step closer and dropped his voice, so only the three of us heard.

"Listen to me. Sign the family release before Monday and take what Rowan's offering, or you walk away with nothing. You understand? Nothing. Not one share."

I frowned. "Share of what? Dad's left me something small. Rowan said so."

"Yes," Pierce said too fast. "Small. That's what I said. Small."

Beside me, Anthony went completely still.

I felt it through his hand. All the heat in that touch went quiet and careful.

"Pierce," he said evenly. "Go."

Pierce looked at the doorman, at the woman with the stroller, and at the phones now raised in the lobby.

He buttoned his coat.

"See you Monday, Lizzie," he said. "Bring a pen."

The revolving door turned behind him.

The woman with the stroller shook her head. "Honey," she said to me, "I'd have hit him."

"I thought about it," I said.

My legs were trembling now that it was over. I realized how hard I had been holding my fists.

Anthony's hand was still on my back.

He took it away slowly.

"What did he mean by share?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said.

I looked at his face. It was the first time he had lied to me, and it was not a good lie.

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